NFT Developer Salary in 2024

NFT

NFT in crypto

An NFT (Non-Fungible Token) is a unique asset on a blockchain that signifies ownership of a digital piece of art, audio or video file. In contrast to mass-produced cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin which can be traded interchangeably, NFTs represent unique units that cannot be passed off as identical products; you cannot exchange your Eminem NFT for another: it is non-fungible and unique. NFTs can act as registration certificates that create a digital chain of ownership, although proof of ownership alone does not equate to actual ownership.

As NFTs have sprung up and blossomed lately, they’ve started to radically shift the paradigm of what it means to own digital goods and the inherent value they carry. This has also given rise to hundreds of NFT marketplaces – essentially, websites that serve as digital storefronts to exhibit, trade, or buy NFTs. The technology behind them seems to have found a niche, and it’s got wide-ranging applications.

What are NFT marketplaces?

These are where NFTs can be stored, displayed, traded, and often even minted (ie, created). NFT marketplaces are to NFTs what Amazon or eBay are to goods.

To access and use these types of marketplaces, you will want to set up the following:

1. A crypto wallet: you’ll need this to hold your crypto tokens, essentially your digital wallet, which must be compatible with a network on which the NFTs you want to buy/sell are held (below). For example, if you’re planning on buying, selling, or minting NFTs that are based on the blockchain network called Ethereum, then you will need to get a compatible Ethereum wallet such as MetaMask.
2. How many coins are in your virtual wallet? If you want to purchase, publish, or mint an NFT, you’re going to have to put some money into your crypto wallet. Once again, it depends on what marketplace you’re planning to use – you’ll need to find out which cryptocurrencies they support.
3. A user account: You need to create an account on the chosen market where NFTs are being bought and sold.

However, creating and listing an NFT on a marketplace generally means paying a blockchain network fee. The cost depends on the blockchain-native system you’re using. Ethereum enables the largest ecosystem of NFT dapps (decentralized applications) but has the highest fees.

NFT blockchain options

Note how the leader here is Ethereum: it is by far the most used system for purchasing selling and creating unique items that are solely held digitally. There are, however, other competitors on the market too: note the following:

• Binance Smart Chain
• Flow (by Dapper Labs)
• Tron
• EOS
• Solana
• Polkadot
• Tezos
• Algorand
• Cosmos
• WAX

How do these marketplaces work?

Signing up

Joining an NFT marketplace will look slightly different from site to site, but in general, you just need to create an account (or ‘sign in’ using one that you already have) or you might be able to just use a wallet that the NFT marketplace supports (or a new one you created for the purpose). You’ll be directed to a page where you Connect your wallet. Once your wallet is connected, you’ll be prompted to enter your wallet password (if it’s not auto-filled) to complete the process.

Buying an NFT

NFTs are bought outright for a certain price, through an auction, or (in some cases) presented to a specific owner and another bidder may make a bid in an attempt to acquire the asset at a lower price.

Selling an NFT

Selling is more technically complicated, especially for someone selling an NFT they’ve created themselves (an artwork, a soundtrack, a tweet, etc).

It means that you have to upload this individual digital asset to the platform and add a fixed price on it, or let the buyer bid for it during an auction.

Then the asset will be verified by the platform and can be listed for sale.

When the seller agrees with a bid, the marketplace executes the transfer from the buyer to the seller.

Minting an NFT

A potential first step toward minting an NFT might be Ethereum, which remains the most prominent system on which such tokens are used. You need an Ethereum wallet with native support of ERC-721 (the Ethereum token standard underpinning NFTs). One such wallet is MetaMask or also Trust Wallet or Coinbase Wallet. You also need to stash about $50-$100 of ethers in your wallet to cover transaction costs (the higher the network congestion, the steeper the fees).

After doing so, you can then begin using OpenSea, Rarible, or any other such platform. Usually, to open the dashboard where you can start minting, you’ll press a button in the top-right corner that reads ‘Create’ or similar.

Types of NFT marketplaces

Within this ecosystem, there are different types of marketplaces: the universal types, like OpenSea, are the most general, the art-focused ones are specialized, and then there are niche ones that list specific traits of non-fungible assets, such as in-game items, digital collectible cards, or virtual real estate.

Here are some popular universal and digital art-oriented NFT marketplaces currently available:

• OpenSea: The most established universal NFT marketplace is here at OpenSea, where you’ll find non-fungible tokens representing ownership of things as diverse as art, sporting collectibles, virtual worlds, trading cards, and domain names.
• Rarible: purchasing it enables replicated purchasing by others below it on the chain It’s an NFT marketplace where you or anyone else can make an NFT on one of three different blockchains, either Ethereum, Tezos, or Flow.
• SuperRare: A similar market is online at SuperRare, which specializes in digital art and works only with a handful of concept artists. Each work on sale is a unique one-of-one NFT.
• Nifty Gateway: Nifty is one of the biggest marketplaces for NFT objects. There you will find artwork from prominent artists, including the owner of the record for the most expensive NFT sold at $69 million – Beeple, and the electronic music producers Steve Aoki and deadmau5.

These are all things that could be swept up in the definition of an NFT. Still, for niche digital goods such as virtual world avatars or digital trading cards for games like fantasy football, there is a distinctly growing number of platforms vying for the attention of each digital market there – but the majority of retail NFT sales are still conducted on five platforms:

• NBA Top Shot: an NFT marketplace on Flow for buying and selling digital collectible cards of videos of memorable NBA ‘moments’.
• Axie Infinity: These are based around a digital game called Axie Infinity, in which people breed, battle, and trade cartoon pets called ‘Axies’, and in which some play professionally for a living.
• Sorare: tokens representing football players you can use in the fantasy football game Sorare.
• Decentraland features an in-house marketplace where players can buy and sell virtual land, in-game items such as wearables, and other digital experiences.
• Treasures: A website that lets users tokenize a tweet and then sell it as an NFT. For example, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet for $2.9 million.